Giuseppe Prezzolini

File:Giuseppe Prezzolini.jpg

Giuseppe Prezzolini in 1975

Giuseppe Prezzolini (27 January 1882 – 16 July 1982) was an Italian journalist, writer, editor, university lecturer and aphorist, later an American citizen.

Biography

Prezzolini was born in Perugia "by chance" (as he used to say) to Sienese parents. Prezzolini found himself, given his father Luigi's job (he held the position of prefect), moving from town to town. He lost his mother, Emilia Pianigiani, when he was just three years old. His school performance is excellent despite frequent changes of location. He abandoned his high school studies in 1898 and continued his education by studying privately in his father's well-stocked library. In Florence he met Giovanni Papini, from whom he was separated by only one year of age. A lasting friendship was born. The following year Prezzolini loses his father. Between 1900 and 1905 he made numerous trips to France; he perfected his French in Grenoble. In 1903, at just 21 years old, he co-founded with Papini the cultural magazine Leonardo., published until 1908. He also initiated an exchange of letters with Giuseppe Ungaretti.

He contributed to Il Regno (1903–1906). In 1904 he wrote the Preface-Manifesto of Enrico Corradini's new journal Hermes. During this period he published his first writings and met Benedetto Croce, who profoundly influenced his thinking. In 1905 he married Dolores Faconti from Milan and moved to Perugia. He then spent some time in Paris, where he came into contact with some of the great men of French culture of the time, including Georges Sorel and Henri Bergson.

Back in Italy, in 1908 he founded La Voce, a magazine he edited until November 1914 (with the exception of a six-month period in 1912) and which during its existence (it would be published until 1916) would range over topics related to literature, politics and society. The magazine met with great success and counted among its contributors many prominent personalities of Italy at the time. Between 1910 and 1911, the first series (thirteen volumes) of the Quaderni della Voce came out, inspired by Charles Péguy's Cahiers de la Quinzaine in terms of content and typographical layout. Prezzolini is the editor of the publishing initiative[2].

In 1911 their first son, Alessandro, was born. 1911 is the year of Italy's attack on Libya. Several articles on the subject appeared in the Voce from the first months. Prezzolini's initial position was anti-nationalist ("We do not fight"). In the following months he gradually changed his mind, until he decided to support the Libyan Campaign. In the same year the publishing house of the Quaderni della Voce closed down. Prezzolini, wanting to continue the publication of the volumes, founded in November the Libreria della Voce, a publishing house run by the same group of intellectuals as the magazine: this was his debut in the publishing business.

In November 1914, Prezzolini left the editorship of La Voce and moved to Rome, where he worked as a correspondent for Popolo d'Italia (a newspaper founded by Benito Mussolini in opposition to the neutralist positions taken by the Socialist Party toward World War I). In 1915, with the imminent birth of his second son, Giuliano (1915–2014), he returned to Florence. He edited La Voce. Edizione politica. Italy is at war and Prezzolini enlists as a volunteer. He performs the task of instructor of the troops. After the defeat of Caporetto (October 1917) he applied to go to the front. In 1918 he was with the Arditi on Monte Grappa and the Piave. At the end of the conflict he had the rank of captain in the Royal Army.

In 1919 he founded the "Società Anonima Editrice La Voce" in Rome, with the Istituto Bibliografico Italiano attached, a biographical and publishing consulting structure, assuming the position of managing director. In September 1922 (we are a month away from the March on Rome), Prezzolini writes a letter, published in La Rivoluzione Liberale (No. 28, September 28, 1922), advancing the hypothesis of a Society of the Apoti, that is, of free individuals, grouped together, who do not take sides, who want to differentiate themselves from contemporary public life and underworld in order to be able to evaluate current political events and contingent news with independence and impartiality. A debate arose that also involved Piero Gobetti (editor of the magazine) and Don Luigi Sturzo.

On October 28, fascism seized power in Italy. In 1923 Prezzolini made his first trip to the United States of America, called for a summer course at Columbia University in New York. In 1925 he is appointed, despite the Fascist government's opposition, as representative for Italy to a Paris-based international institution, the Institut international de coopération intellectuelle ("International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation," the ancestor of today's UNESCO) and moves to the French capital with his family. He left the position of managing director of the Voce publishing company. In the summer of 1927 he returned to Columbia University for more courses. In 1929 he obtained a one-year appointment at the American university and moved from Paris to New York with his family. He took over the direction of the Casa Italiana at Columbia University, a center for studies and training. He would return to Europe every summer until 1938 (In 1936 he spent a sabbatical year in Italy instead). The fruit of his research work will be the Bibliographical Repertory of the History and Criticism of Italian Literature from 1903 to 1942, published in 1946. On January 22, 1940, he became a U.S. citizen and resigned as director of the Italian House. His directorship lasted ten years. He continued to teach at Columbia University. In 1948 the New York university named him "professor emeritus" of Italianism. Among his students was the Italian-American writer Anne Paolucci. Meanwhile, he started collaborations with a number of Italian newspapers.

Since December 1945 he has been writing in the Roman newspaper Il Tempo. In 1950 he was one of the first contributors to Leo Longanesi's new periodical Il Borghese. In 1955 he returned to Italy to establish relations with the newspapers La Nazione and Il Resto del Carlino, and especially with publishing houses, for the purpose of publishing his works in the peninsula. In 1962 his first wife, from whom he had been separated for more than 20 years, died. He remarried Gioconda Savini (known as "Jackie") and left the United States for good after more than 25 years there. He returned to Italy and settled in Vietri sul Mare, on the Amalfi Coast.

He moved in 1968 to Lugano, Switzerland, because, he would say, he could not stand the bureaucracy, corruption, cunning, strike-breaking, welfare state excess, and mediocrity of the Italian political class. In 1981 his second wife died. On January 27, 1982, Prezzolini turned 100 years old. That year he receives the "Golden Pen" from Head of State Sandro Pertini in a ceremony at the Quirinale. To Montanelli he says, "If I go broke, I'll sell it." He spends the day in his studio, working, as if it were any other day. He died on July 14 of the same year. From October 1981 he was joined by Sister Margherita Marchione (1922–2021), an American nun who had known Prezzolini as a young university student, as his secretary and confidante.

Among his major works: the memoirs Dopo Caporetto (1919) and Vittorio Veneto (1920); several essays, such as La cultura italiana (written with Giovanni Papini, 1906) and works from the American period (America in pantofole, 1950; L'italiano inutile, 1953) and the Manifesto dei conservatori and the four biographies on Papini, Mussolini, Giovanni Amendola and Benedetto Croce.

He died in Lugano on 16 July 1982.

Works

• La coltura italiana (with Giovanni Papini). Florence, Soc. An. Editrice "La Voce", 1906
• L'arte di persuadere, 1907
• Cos'è il modernismo?, 1908
• La teoria sindacalista, 1909
• Benedetto Croce, Naples, Ricciardi, 1909
• Vecchio e nuovo nazionalismo, (with G. Papini), 1914
• Dopo Caporetto. Rome, La Voce, 1919.
• Vittorio Veneto. Rome, La Voce, 1920.
• Codice della vita italiana, 1921.
• Benito Mussolini. Rome, Formiggini, 1924.
• Mi pare.... Fiume, Edizioni Delta, 1925.
• Giovanni Amendola. Rome, Formiggini, 1925.
• Vita di Nicolò Machiavelli fiorentino, 1927.

Published in the United States

• Come gli Americani scoprirono l'Italia. 1750-1850, 1933;
• L'italiano inutile, 1954;
• Saper leggere, 1956;
• Tutta l'America, 1958;
• The Legacy of Italy, 1948 (published in Italy as L'Italia finisce, ecco quel che resta, Vallecchi, 1958)

After Prezzolini's return to Italy

• Ideario, 1967;
• Dio è un rischio, 1969;

After Prezzolini's move to Lugano, Switzerland

• Manifesto dei conservatori. Milan, Rusconi, 1972;
• Amendola e «La Voce». Florence Sansoni, 1973;
• La Voce, 1908-1913. Cronaca, antologia e fortuna di una rivista. Milan, Rusconi, 1974;
• Storia tascabile della letteratura italiana. Milan, Pan, 1976;
• Sul fascismo. 1915-1975. Milan, Pan, 1977;
• Prezzolini alla finestra. Milan, Pan, 1977.

Memoirs and correspondence

• Storia di un'amicizia (correspondence with Giovanni Papini), 2 voll., 1966–68
• Giovanni Boine, Carteggio, vol. I, Giovanni Boine – Giuseppe Prezzolini (1908-1915) pp. xviii-262, 1971
• Giuseppe De Luca, Giuseppe Prezzolini, Carteggio (1925-1962), 1975
• Carteggio Giuseppe Prezzolini, Ardengo Soffici. 1: 1907-1918. A cura di Mario Richter. Rome, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1977. (Scheda libro)
• Carteggio Giuseppe Prezzolini, Ardengo Soffici. 2: 1920-1964. Edited by Mario Richter and Maria Emanuela Raffi. Rome, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1982
• Carteggio 1904-1945, con Benedetto Croce, 1990
• Giuseppe Prezzolini - Mario Missiroli, Carteggio (1906-1974), edited by and with an introduction by Alfonso Botti, Rome-Lugano, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Dipartimento dell'Istruzione e cultura del Cantone Ticino, 1992, pp. XL-472
• Antonio Baldini, Giuseppe Prezzolini, Carteggio 1912-1962, pp. xxii-150, 1993
• Piero Marrucchi, Giuseppe Prezzolini, Carteggio 1902-1918, pp. xxvi-250, 1997
• Giovanni Angelo Abbo, Giuseppe Prezzolini, Carteggio 1956-1982, pp. xii-236, 2000
• Diario, 1900-1941. Milan, Rusconi, 1978
• Diario, 1942-1968. Milan, Rusconi, 1980

Posthumous publications

• Vita di Niccolò Machiavelli fiorentino. Milan, Rusconi, 1994. ISBN 8818700871.
• Intervista sulla Destra. Milan, Mondadori, 1994. ISBN 8804387246.
• Diario, 1968-1982. Milan, Rusconi, 1999.
• Codice della vita italiana, Robin, 2003. ISBN 8873710220.
• Addio a Papini (with Ardengo Soffici), edited by M. Attucci and L. Corsetti, Poggio a Caiano - Prato, Associazione Culturale Ardengo Soffici - Pentalinea, 2006. ISBN 88-86855-41-9.

References

• Benvenuto, Beppe (2003). Giuseppe Prezzolini. Palermo: Sellerio.
• Betocchi, Silvia (1994). Giuseppe Prezzolini: gli anni americani, 1929-1962. Firenze: Gabinetto G. P. Vieusseux.
• Biondi, Marino (2001). Giuseppe Prezzolini: diario di un secolo. Bolzano: Centro di cultura dell'Alto Adige.
• Campanile, Marina (1987). Giuseppe Prezzolini nella formazione della coscienza critica degli italiani: atti del Convegno nazionale di studi, Caserta, 25-26-27 ottobre 1985. Napoli: Banco di Napoli.
• Gaudio, Angelo (2016). "Prezzolini educatore." In: Le carte e i discepoli. Studi in onore di Claudio Griggio. Udine: Forum, pp. 451–57.
• Gentile, Emilio (2016). "Prezzolini, Giuseppe." In: Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Vol. 85. Roma: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
• Iannone, Luigi (2003). Un conservatore atipico: Giuseppe Prezzolini intellettuale politicamente scorretto. Roma: Pantheon.
• Mazzuca, Alberto (2017). Penne al vetriolo. I grandi giornalisti raccontano la Prima Repubblica. Bologna: Minerva.
• Manacorda, Giuliano (1994). "Prezzolini, Giuseppe." In: Enciclopedia Italiana, V Appendice. Roma: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
• Pino Pongolini, Francesca (1982). I cento anni di Giuseppe Prezzolini: Catalogo della mostra bio-bibliografica. Locarno, Pedrazzini.
• Ragusa, Olga (2001). Gli anni americani di Giuseppe Prezzolini. Firenze: Le Monnier.
• Rossi, Ernesto (1962). Giuseppe Prezzolini: Uomo senza pregiudizi. Firenze: La nuova Italia.
• Salek, Roberto (2002). Giuseppe Prezzolini: Una biografia intellettuale. Firenze: Le Lettere.
• Sangiuliano, Gennaro (2008). Giuseppe Prezzolini: l'anarchico conservatore. Milano: Mursia.
• Solinas, Stenio (1977). Prezzolini. Un testimone scomodo. Roma: Volpe.
• Verrecchia, Anacleto (1995). Giuseppe Prezzolini: l'eretico dello spirito italiano. Torino: Fogola.

External links

• Works by Giuseppe Prezzolini at Gallica
• Works by Giuseppe Prezzolini at Open Library